Welding blanket for insulation

[enterprise]

Have any of you fellas ever used a welding blanket for insulating purposes?
I built an horizontal offset out of a 55 gallon drum and 120# grease barrel and tried to use it this weekend. I could not get the temps above and maintained above 200*. I realize it may not be the most effecient smoker but I had tested it the other weekend under about the same conditions, weather, and I could maintain 250* fairly easily. I had good smoke coming out of the stack which is 4" dia. Opening from SFB to CC is 6.25"

here are some pictures of the 2nd burn on the rig. Thanks for the input

http://s669.photobucket.com/albums/vv58/Slatherer/Smoker build burn number 2/

 

[tom37]

I would have to think maybe you are working with a draft issue, maybe the wind was less or from a different direction. We have had this problem with our larger offsets on occasion, now we keep a small clamp on fan in both rigs. If we can't move the rig to make it work right then we plug the little fan in.

Yours may be a little easier to move around.

Probably a dumb question here but did you run the calculator to get your inlet sizes?

 BTW..... What was the temp outdoors?

 

[enterprise]

Yes, I ran the calcs about 8 times to test how things playe out. Mid 70's for the temps. The wind was set up to blow into the SFB. Did try different orientations due to swirling wind. I am afraid the metal is so thin that I lose it ou  of the SFB and the CC.

Thanks